Sidelines: A Half Life Saga
by BlindAcquiescence
Summary: A series of vignettes taking a look at the lives of our favourite heroes and misfits in the years between Half-Life and Half-Life 2
1. Day One

Disclaimer: Neither BlindAcquiescence or Super Chocolate Bear own _Half-Life. _They just like it a whole lot.

Word.

_**Sidelines**_

_**Day One by BlindAcquiescence**_

"Do you think it wise, Calhoun, that we stop here?"

Rosenberg tugged at his tie until it loosened slightly. Sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV, the former employee of the Black Mesa Research Facility wasn't looking in his best shape ever. His lab coat was ripped and torn, his pants stained with blood, his as well as others. His fellow scientists, Simmons and Walter, looked no better. Walter had used part of his lab coat for a tunicate that was now wrapped around Simmons' arm, an improvised sling keeping it in place. Walter's blue business shirt was caked in dirt, his tie long gone.

Barney Calhoun leaned his weary head against the steering wheel. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, feeling the grimy clothing, stained in sweat and alien blood, slide uncomfortably against his skin.

"Unless you've got a better idea." His eyes flickered to the gas gauge; it's needle dipping far below the "E" symbol. "We haven't got any gas, and I'm fresh out of cash. Didn't think I'd be going on a road trip today." He sourly remarked.

Rosenberg rubbed the weariness out of his eyes and looked again at the motel Calhoun had chosen to stop at. Dust crawled across the parking lot; the neon sign above the office had the words "Vacancy" lit. In the middle of nowhere, in a town choking on the sands of the New Mexican desert, the motel was probably as good a place as any to stop and take a breather.

"Looks like something out of Psycho," Simmons chuckled slightly, his mouth splayed wide in a morphine-induced grin.

Calhoun couldn't help but smile himself. "Alright, I'm going to go inside and get us a room." He pulled the 9mm Beretta 92FS and handed it to Rosenberg. "Just don't shoot yourself in the foot, okay?"

Rosenberg took the pistol and held it in his lap, nodding silently. Shrugging off his Kevlar vest and helmet, Barney opened the door and stepped out into the searing sunlight. He brought a hand up to shield his eyes from the intense light as he walked towards the office.

The door opened with a chime, a small bell ringing annoyingly. The office was empty; a small television sitting in the corner behind a counter with several out-dated and faded brochures advertising this particular circle of hell. Calhoun waited at the counter, tapping his finger impatiently as he watched the small television.

"_Reports are coming in of an accidental explosion in the middle of the New Mexico desert, near Black Mesa. Preliminary reports suggest that a supposedly decommissioned nuclear missile base may have sustained a catastrophic nuclear detonation,__"_ a young female reporter in a stylish business suit said as pictures of the blast site were flashed across the screen.

_Jesus_, Barney thought, _we survived that. _

Memories of that frantic drive away from Black Mesa filled his mind. As soon as the eggheads had them teleported out of the facility, they were able to hotwire one of the SUV's, and make a break for it. Barney had the accelerator floored the entire time, racing across the barren terrain, the terrible horrors they'd witnessed becoming less of a threat with each passing mile.

That was until the blast. Barney remembered feeling the heat on the back of his neck before he heard the rest of the men screaming.

"_Don__'__t look into the blast!__"_

"_Oh God, they did it, they really did it, those bastards!__"_

"_Oh my God we__'__re doomed!__"_

The Black Mesa Research Facility had been wiped off the map, along with dozens of people Barney had known, many of them his friends…

_Gordon, buddy, I sure hope you made it out alright__…_ But Calhoun's thoughts were interrupted as a greasy old man, looking almost worse than Barney did, stepped out from the back room, a half-eaten sandwich in his dirt-crusted hands. He chewed on a portion of it, not saying a word.

Finally Barney, a frown crossing his face, spoke. "I'd like a room, please." The clerk's expression didn't change in the slightest as he rummaged behind the counter. Pulling out three laminated pieces of paper, he set them in front of Calhoun.

"Which one you want?" They were floor plans for the different sized rooms. Barney didn't bother looking, grabbed one, and pushed it towards the clerk. The man raised his eyebrows at the dismissive action, and set his sandwich down grotesquely on the space in front of Calhoun as he walked to the other wall and grabbed a set of keys off of the wall.

"You're in room 25, end of the walkway out this door," he said, swapping the keys for the sandwich. Calhoun grabbed them and turned to leave. "What do you think 'bout all this?" The clerk asked, motioning to the TV.

"_White House Press Correspondent Dana Perini has issued the following statement: __'__The White House is currently investigating what has been dubbed the __'__Black Mesa Incident__'__ and, as of yet, has no definitive answer, though the possibility of terrorism has not been ruled out.__'_ The reporter set the piece of paper with the statement down, Barney saw the clerk smirk and make a masturbatory gesture. _"__Recently released files under the Freedom of Information Act have indicated that the Black Mesa facility, after it__'__s offensive abilities had been withdrawn, was used for the decommissioning of unused nuclear warheads. Could it be that during one of these routine procedures, something went terribly wrong? Our correspondent in Chicago has more on that possibility__…"_

"Goddamn Taliban, or Al-Qaeda." The clerk slammed his hand on the counter. "Or maybe it was the Chinese, those sneaky bastards." Barney didn't bother responding. The clerk looked him over. "You look like you had a rough day, pal."

Barney sighed and turned to leave. "You don't know the half of it."

X X X

"…That's the safety, and this, this button you push to eject the clip when it's spent." Rosenberg thumbed both buttons, and the black, gunmetal clip slid out the bottom of the pistol, hitting the bed with a dull _thunk._ Barney smiled slightly. "That's it." Rosenberg pointed the pistol around the room in an action-hero-esque manner. Barney ducked instinctively as the barrel swept by him. "Whoa there Rambo! There's still a live round in the chamber!" Rosenberg immediately safetied the weapon and handed it gingerly to Calhoun.

"My apologies." His face was bright red.

"It's fine, you're doing better already." Barney slammed the clip back in and checked the action. Tucking it into his holster, he fished through the duffel bag at the foot of the bed. Pulling out another holster, a replica of the pistol he carried tucked inside, he handed it to Rosenberg. "Like I said before, just don't shoot yourself in the foot." The scientist stared in disbelief at the weapon presented to him.

"Do you really think all this is necessary?" Walter whined from the other side of the room, sat up on one of the beds. "The facility is gone, do you really think there's any need for you to teach us how to fire those damned things?"

Barney turned to Walter, his lips drawn tight. "Look, those soldiers hunting us were sent by our _own_ government. Do you really think that they're going to stop looking for us?" Barney spat. "They'll kill us for what we know!"

"That's absurd. Once we've spoken with the president, explained to him the situation-"

Barney cut the man off. "I saw my _friends_ gunned down by those death squads, people executed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you're going to sit here and tell me-"

"You're being paranoid!" Walter yelled, standing up from the bed and meeting the former security guard face-to-face. "You guards are all the same, all gung-ho, with no respect for reason or log-"

Calhoun took a step forward, as if to strike Walter. "Hey pal, I saved your goddamn _life_, if you haven't already forgotten." In a flash Rosenberg was in between the two men.

"Gentlemen please! Right now we need to rest and regroup, we don't have time to be at each other's throats!" There was silence for a moment, and Calhoun heard the sound of a fifth, unfamiliar voice. Turning, he saw that Simmons had turned the television on.

Another reporter, an older man in a gray suit, stood shielding himself against gale-force winds. The sky behind him was dark and brooding, and Barney half-expected him to be reporting from the middle of a hurricane.

Over the roaring wind, the men could barely make out what the reporter was screaming._"__This is Ryan Sellers, reporting from Black Mesa, New Mexico. Government vehicles stopped our reporting van forty miles south of the facility, threatening us with deadly force if we didn__'__t turn back__…_" An arrogant smile crossed his face. _"__But this reporter _always_ gets his story! We__'__re standing on an outcropping, a cliff twenty miles east of what experts are dubbing __'__Ground Zero__'__. Now I__'__ve been told there__'__s minimal fallout, something to do with radiation dampening technology that decommissioning facilities use-__"_

Barney turned to Rosenberg, who nodded numbly.

"_-__so hopefully this scoop won't cost me my future children.__"_ The reporter grinned at what he thought must have been a hilarious joke. The camera shifted as several small pieces of debris flew by. Ryan Sellers ducked, screaming several profanities not fit for television.

"_From where we__'__re currently standing, we can__'__t see anything resembling the complex we__'__ve been told once existed here. But what we want to show you is something much more terrifying, much more alien than what _other_ news networks have been able to cover! Ladies and gentlemen__…"_ Ryan seemed at a loss for words to mark the momentous occasion, and simply motioned for his cameraman to look to his left. As the scene shifted all four men in the tiny, cramped motel room cursed.

The clouds were black as soot, swirling around like a manic tornado, a giant red eye in the center gazing angrily down at the Earth.

"Christ…" Simmons muttered. Suddenly the room was alive with arguments as the three scientists threw theories back and forth as to the nature of the giant storm.

"I never thought it was possible…" Walter moaned.

Simmons interrupted him. "Those boys in the Applied Quantum labs predicted it might happen, but never on this kind of scale-

"Those ones we opened up in the Lambda complex were nothing compared to this-"

"No, no this can't be!" Rosenberg moaned. "Dr. Green and Dr. Cross were successful in initiating the Resonance Reversal! I talked them through the procedure myself!" He cradled his head in his hands as he sat on the bed, his legs losing feeling.

"Doc, what the hell is going on?" Barney asked, not bothering to hide the fear in his voice.

"The satellite they launched, the one that would initiate the Resonance Reversal, it didn't perform like we planned! It was suppose to suppress the cross-dimensional rift growth. It should have slowed it to a halt, then cause the singularity to collapse in on itself!"

"English, please," Calhoun growled.

"What I mean is…" Rosenberg said quietly. "That the portal we opened, the one to Xen. We thought we closed it." Calhoun thought he could hear the man weeping behind the hands covering his face. "But… but it's _still open._"

Barney turned back to the television and watched as the reporter, who despite screaming into the microphone, could not be heard. He turned again to the giant portal, the clouds trembling and green lightning sparking across the great black sky until a clap was heard, and the whole scene disappeared in a blaze of white, the transmission cutting to static.

"So those…_things_… that came through it…"

Rosenberg lifted his head, puffy red eyes and damp cheeks indeed proving he had been sobbing, and whispered, "Aren't done with us yet…"

X X X

Barney sat in the old lounge chair in the corner of the room. Outside crickets chirped, but in the distance, thunder sounded. He felt goose bumps prickle across his grimy skin. That wasn't a normal storm brewing…

He couldn't sleep. Funny, figuring the last thirty-six hours of his life he had spent wishing all of this were just a bad dream. He'd like nothing more to fall asleep and wake up, back in the Sector C Dormitories…

The other men were asleep, and Calhoun envied them. Simmons snored as the last of the morphine coursed through his system. He'd be a bitch to deal with tomorrow. Walter and Rosenberg had stayed up, both scribbling down nonsensical equations and half-theories about what the hell was going on. Finally Walter had given up, and crawled into bed next to Simmons. Rosenberg almost immediately collapsed, Barney assumed from total exhaustion.

The man had been different after that last television report. Hell, they were all different. They thought they were out of the woods, but now it seemed those demons they all had fought so hard to rid themselves of were coming back, and in force. But Rosenberg took it especially hard. He had led those two poor women, Drs Colette Green and Gina Cross, into the depths of hell to finish this thing, and now it seems they might have died for nothing.

They'd all died for nothing. Barney shut his eyes tightly. _No_, he thought,_ not Gordon. He made it out. He__'__s smart; he would have found a way to the surface, to the Lambda labs like Rosenberg had hinted at in the elevator. He would have used the teleporters to get out__…__right?_ The scientist, on their descent down into the older teleportation labs, had offhandedly mentioned that Freeman had single-handedly waged a war across the facility, hoping to make it to the Lambda labs, and end this whole goddamnedable mess.

_And Lauren_, Barney inwardly groaned, _what the hell must she think?_ Barney lifted his left hand, closely to his face in the dim light of the dark room, and stared at his engagement ring. His girlfriend of three years and fiancée of four months, they had been forced apart as he worked his way up in the Black Mesa security division. She had been out several times to the facility to see him, and made it a duty to berate his chosen line of work. He loved her, with all his heart, which was why he took the job. With a high-paying government salary, he could afford that house they always wanted, the one on Spooner Street, with the big lawn for Rex to play in, and the white fence…

"Get a hold of yourself, buddy," Calhoun whispered to himself. Lauren was okay, she was living with her mother until Calhoun had enough to put a down payment on the house; she was safe in San Francisco. The security guard marvelled at his luck, though, as Lauren had been visiting just a week prior to this whole foul thing.

Grabbing the TV remote, Barney turned the television on to take his mind off the present situation. But no matter how many times he switched the channel, it was always the same thing.

"_Reports of strange electrical storms-"_

"_Religious officials are calling it __'__Judgment__'__, as several senior Republican senators and congressmen have openly discussed the possibility of __'__divine retribution for our national short-comings__'-"_

"…_We__'__ve__…__we__'__ve just lost contact with our reporter in the field__-"_

Barney stopped flipping channels, as he saw the ubiquitous circular symbol representing the Aperture Science Corporation in the background of a news report. Barney turned the volume up.

"…_As of yet,__"_ The reporter droned. _"__None of the calls made to either the public relations office or the board of directors own private line have been returned. Aperture Science, supposed rival of the recently publicized Black Mesa Research Facility, has had a suspicious eye cast upon it in light of recent events. The sudden silence from Aperture and its subsidiaries has called into question whether or not it had anything to do with what some are calling the biggest accident in scientific history__…"_

Aperture Science? Weren't those the weirdoes that were going around trying to buy out Black Mesa personnel? Barney distinctly remembered that ominous letter Gordon had received just weeks ago, offering him a competitive salary but strangely quoting a CV that the quiet scientist didn't remember ever sending them.

Calhoun sighed and turned the television off. Getting up, he walked outside, telling himself he needed some air. Outside the night air was warm; it felt heavy against his chest as he walked out towards the parked SUV. Checking inside, he rummaged through the glove box and looked inside the cup holders, until…

"Gotcha." He grinned triumphantly. He fished the quarters out of the cup holder, and pocketed them. Turning to look over his shoulder, he found himself alone in the darkened parking lot. He pulled the Beretta out of his waistband and checked its action again, quietly sliding it back underneath his untucked shirt. Making his way across the parking lot, and around to the back of the office, he saw what he had been searching for.

Underneath a lone street light on the deserted highway road, he saw the blue telephone booth. Calhoun looked around nervously, carefully trying not to look suspicious. Sliding into the cramped booth, he pulled the receiver off the hook and dialled the number.

'_Please insert__…"_ the automated voice hesitated as it calculated the long-distance cost of the call. Barney tapped his hand impatiently on the top of the phone box, all the while staring at the smudged ring on his finger. _"…__one dollar to complete this phone call.__"_ Barney parcelled out the quarters and slid them into the box.

The phone began ringing, his heart thumping in time with the rings. Finally he heard a click, and someone muttered annoyingly. _"__H__…__hello?__"_

In the background he could hear another, more angry voice.

"_Who the hell is calling at 3 am?"_

"Lauren?" Calhoun barely was able to utter the name.

"_Jesus__…_Barney?_ Barney! Mom it__'__s Barney! Baby__…"_ Lauren began crying. _"__I__'__ve been watching the news__… __I__…__ I thought you were dead__…__We didn__'__t know what was__…"_ Her sobbing obscured the rest.

"Honey, honey." Barney reassured her. "It's okay, everything's okay, I'm fine. Are you okay?"

Lauren stopped crying, though hiccups interrupted her. _"__Yeah__…__ yeah, me and mom are fine. Everyone__'__s talking about what__'__s happening. What__'__s going on, Barney? The whole city is going mad, the governor is talking about declaring marshal law__…"_

"I don't know what's going on. But I'm with people who might know how to stop it." Barney looked out of the booth, searching for ghosts in the darkness, figures that might spring out of the shadows and finish what the aliens had already started.

"_Barney__…__ where are you?__"_

Then he heard it. But it wasn't outside; it was on the other line, almost imperceptible, but there. An audible _click_, like someone picking up another phone.

But Lauren's mother only had _one_ phone in the house.

The government was tapping their line, trying to trace his call. Barney had to think fast.

"Lauren, I love you, you know that right?"

She sounded confused. _"__I__…__where are you? Barney, tell me where you are, we__'__ll come get you.__"_

"I love you, baby."

"_I love you too, but…"_

"They you need to understand I can't tell you where I am." And with that, he slammed the phone down on the receiver. Hugging the phone box, Barney began to slowly weep.

X X X

The light that crept through the blinds hurt Barney's eyes. He strained to move his head away, but the rising sun followed his movements. He lay there in bed, his eyes half-closed, listening to the others wake up and mill about the room.

Simmons turned the TV on, but instead of the barrage of news reports, only static filled the screen.

"What's the news?" He heard himself ask.

"Nothing good," Walter snapped.

"The electro-static discharge must be interrupting the radio waves," Rosenberg said, walking out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

"You mean the storm?" Calhoun mumbled. Christ, couldn't they speak English? Rosenberg set to putting his dirty clothes back on and pointed out the window.

"It's getting closer…" Simmons moaned in bed and gingerly poked his arm. Barney rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Standing up, he pulled several of the blinds down and looked out the window.

The storm was just cresting over the horizon. It spread out across it in every direction, threatening to swallow the Earth whole. Green lightning, the kind they had seen on the news, shot down through the clouds and buried itself in the desert floor below.

"Mother of God…" Calhoun mumbled. Simmons groaned again, and Walter went to his side.

"He needs to get to a hospital." He hesitated for a moment. "We all do, we don't know how many rads we were exposed to."

The thought of all that radiation coursing through his body, along with the accumulation of sweat and dirt caused Barney to head for the bathroom.

Stripping down, he stepped into the small shower and let the ice-cold water drip down his body. Though the temperature left something to be desired, the water felt wonderful. Looking down at his exposed body, Barney saw the scars of two days of fighting. He felt a cluster of bruises on his abdomen and winced slightly. Several high calibre bullets had impacted in his armour, keepsakes from those Marines. A circular scar, ringed with small gashes sat on his left thigh, where a bullsquid had tried to make a meal out of him. But the worst…

A hand gingerly felt the burn along his back, a consequence of letting one of those electricity aliens get the drop on him. Walters had treated it with anti-septic and a burn cream, but it still hurt like a bitch.

Suddenly a violent earthquake rocked the bathroom. Cursing, Calhoun half-jumped, half-fell out of the shower. Throwing on his pants and shirt, he ran into the bedroom, only to find it empty with the front door hanging open.

"Holy crap, guys," He said walking out, finding the men standing just outside the door. "What the heck do you think caused that earthquake…" Barney stopped in his tracks as he saw what the three men were staring in horror at. The storm had neared them much faster than they thought. Less than a mile off, lightning pounded the ground mercilessly.

"My word…" Rosenberg whispered.

"The Resonance distortion is causing multiple rifts to occur," Walter quietly observed.

"We need to leave," Barney said, taking his eyes off the impending storm. "We need to leave _now_."

That's when it hit. It sounded like a shrieking animal, but too high-pitched. The sound travelled across the mesa from the storm, howling loud enough to make the men cover their ears. Barney looked around, and saw several people leave the safety of their motel rooms. Some ran back inside, others ran for their car.

"What's going on?!" Barney screamed over the shrieking. Rosenberg turned to Walter for a moment, and the two shared a brief, horrifying glance.

The scientist yelled something inaudible.

"What?!" Barney screamed, his voice cracking.

"Magnetic Field Burst!" Rosenberg screamed.

"What the _hell_ does that mean!?"

The sound grew louder, and suddenly the air was filled with a blue hue, almost akin to the aurora borealis, which surged through the air wildly.

"Portal Storm!" He heard Rosenberg yell, as the force of the gale threw the men off their feet. The wave of blue energy careened past them, throwing Walter against the door, and Simmons through the window. Rosenberg hurtled behind a car, and Barney huddled against the wall.

The energy wave screamed through the atmosphere, and when it hit the motel, it ploughed through it with ease. Cars were overturned, smashing into one another, the Black Mesa SUV itself flung through the air like a toy.

Then, above the sound of the storm, Calhoun could hear the distinct sound of rending metal. Looking up, he watched as the nearby radio tower bent like grain in the wind against the force of the energy. When it finally became too much for it to structurally handle, there was a loud _pop_ as the tower was ripped apart by the wave and fell on top of the office, crushing it.

The shrieking was so loud, Barney was sure he was going to go deaf. The ringing in is head, due in part to the high pitched wailing and the bump he sustained whilst being thrown against the wall, was all he could hear as the storm finally subsided.

Pushing himself up, he felt his hands push into broken glass. Wincing in pain, Calhoun tried to stand, shaking his head and checking for blood. Finally the ringing subsided, and he could hear the moans.

"Oh God, Simmons!" He heard Walter cry. The scientist was crouched next to his friend, who lay dead underneath the broken window. What the aliens had started, the portal storms had finished. "One of the greatest minds of his generation!" Walter wailed.

Dusting himself off, Barney looked for Dr. Rosenberg, and found the scientist lying inert next to the car. Barney shook him; valiantly try to wake the man. "Come on, doc, don't crap out on me now!"

The scientist finally came to, rubbing the back of his head.

"Oh God, Calhoun, what have we _done?_" Were his only words.

"You going to be okay, doc?" He nodded yes, and Barney helped him to his feet.

Before Rosenberg could speak, Walter was on top of them, raving like a madman.

"_You_ had to tamper with this. This would never have happened if you and your Entanglement Team hadn't poked its nose in things that shouldn't be meddled with! Now Simmons is dead…" Walter was having an asthma attack as he desperately tried to suck in air. Rosenberg tried to help the man from collapsing.

From off to his left, Barney could hear other people yelling, running out of their rooms to see what had happened. A mother and her two children rushed by them, running for their car, bags swinging frantically in their arms.

"What the hell is going on?!" A man screamed into his cell phone as he kicked the over-turned heap of his expensive sports car. But all of that was drowned out by the scream of a young girl. Barney felt for his pistol, but unfortunately had left it in the room. He looked around and found the source of the scream. The girl couldn't have been older than eight or nine, as she stood next to her parents and pointed out across the parking lot.

"Oh _fuck!__"_ Barney yelled. Rosenberg followed his gaze, and uttered something similar.

A Bullsquid, flanked by several headcrabs, crawled across the broken pavement of the motel parking lot. It's tentacles undulating with hunger, it made a beeline for the young girl and her parents, who themselves were now shrieking with terror and marshalling their daughter into their room.

Barney turned to Rosenberg. "Get Walter to a car, any car, get it hotwired, _now_."

His companion looked confused. "But what about you?"

But Barney was already rushing past him and into their room.

_It__'__s time to act, Calhoun. Time to show the world, and your friends, that you give a damn, that you__'__re no coward._ He told himself. He felt his pulse quicken. _Lauren, I__'__m coming for you, I promise._

Rosenberg threw Walter into the backseat of the Jeep parked at the end of the lot. Over the winds of the approaching storm, he could hear screams and shots as the panicked civilians desperately tried to defend themselves against the otherworldly creatures. Ripping the bottom out of the steering column, he frantically set about starting the car.

Gunshots rang out in the storm, and Rosenberg feared someone might end up accidentally shooting him. He ducked down, but slowly peeked up over the dashboard.

And saw Barney Calhoun. Dressed in his uniform and Kevlar vest like some knight in battered armour, the former security guard took aim and finished off the creatures scratching at the motel room doors. His clip empty, he ejected it smoothly and seamlessly slapped another one in.

A door to his left suddenly fell open as several bloodied bodies, topped with those horrific headcrabs, shambled out. They had only recently become infected, and so they clawed frantically at the pavement, trying to remove the parasites.

He saw Calhoun hesitate, and then bring his pistol to bear. Taking aim, he put a round in each body, leaving them inert.

The bodies stopped moving, and Calhoun looked around for any more. As silence descended on the motel, he felt the tears well up in his eyes. Holstering the pistol, Barney looked out across the battered landscape.

_This is only the beginning, isn__'__t it?_

--

(A/N:

Super Chocolate Bear:

This, ladies and gentlemen, was the story that inspired everything that is going to come after it. Originally I was going to write a story following Barney's life in different years between _Half-Life _and _Half-Life 2._ But then I found myself more interested in telling a story with wider scope, with a sort of _Cloverfield _perspective to events, which will become a bit more apparent in later chapters. And when I thought of wider scope, I immediately thought of the huge, expansive events portrayed in 'Shephard's Epic' by BlindAcquiescence, particularly the earlier chapters involving Tower, Jackson and Wilkes. So a joint venture seemed pretty inevitable.

As for the chapter itself, I was pleased to see that every detail I put into my chapter plan was inserted somewhere or another, from the Aperture Science TV report to the radiation dampeners. And yet BlindAcquiescence still managed to surprise me with little touches like Barney contacting his fiancée and the death of Simmons, which wasn't planned at all. But it makes sense from a dramatic and writing point of view. It ups the personal stakes for Barney and the other scientists, whereas before it had been more of a general atmosphere of foreboding and fear, now they've truly lost someone.

BlindAcquiescence:

The moment I finished reading Super Chocolate Bear's proposal I was sold. He sent along a list of several story ideas he wanted to do, and asked me what I thought. Needless to say I was more than willing to get my name on a project like this. Writers' block was leading to an increasingly stagnant "Shephard's Epic", so I thought a break would be just what I needed. (This turned out to be true, as I've written the next three chapters and are about to send them along to my compatriot for Beta'ing)

This story, the first in this series of vignettes that our friend has crafted, struck me as one of the most interesting. We all love the story of the underdog and no one's caught the flavor of Barney Calhoun quite like he has. But SuperChocobear was kind enough to allow me to give my own twist to a story involving what I believe is his favourite Half-Life character.

Barney thought he was done, he thought it was over, but he's sorely mistaken. This chapter shows that Black Mesa was only the beginning, the spark that would lead to the enslavement of an entire planet. Both he and I wanted to show that between two of the greatest games ever created are stories that haven't been told yet, and we thought we'd lend our collective hands at doing just that.

As Samuel Jackson once said – "Hold on to your butts…"


	2. Day Seven

Disclaimer: We don't own _Half-Life._ If only we did. This would all be canon, like, _right now_.

-Word, brother.

_**Sidelines**_

_**Day Seven**_

It was strange, the thoughts that went through one's head when they had just woken up. Sometimes it would be 'what the hell is that?' or 'not right now, come back later' and occasionally (and embarrassingly) 'how did that get there?'. But right now, all Louis Griggs could think of was how flat his pillow felt. Not that these things usually bothered him that much. But when you were twenty one years old, the little things mattered. Whether the acne had flared up overnight or the hair had decided to become some kind of strange upside-down 'Q' shape.

But right now, it was the pillow. Rolling over in his (still single) bed, Griggs noted from the wallet-shaped lump in his back pocket that he had gone to sleep in his clothes again.

He hated when that happened. Luckily he had taken his shoes off, so that was good. But damn, jeans weren't built for sleeping in. Especially when they had the smell of old cigarettes and spilt beer on them.

"Lou? Are you planning on getting up before lunch?"

Ah. His ever present mom. Was it completely impossible for her to be out _once_, just so Griggs could wake up in the morning and pretend he wasn't twenty one years old and living with his mother? Not that there was anything wrong with that, or so he had been told; but still. Living. With. His. Mother.

"Lou?"

Scrunching up his face, Griggs rolled over and buried his face in his flat pillow.

"I'll get up in a minute," he shouted, which through the pillow admittedly sounded somewhat like 'Arghumphlargumblarr.'

"What?"

With a loud groan, Griggs lifted his head, feeling his unshaven chin scraping against the pillow. "I said 'I'll get up in a minute'."

"It's just there's something on the news I think you should see."

"Why?"

"Well… just come down."

"What is it?"

"It's… hard to explain, really."

"Mom, it's not hard," he moaned, hefting himself out of the bed and up into a sitting position. "Did someone I know die?"

"Louis Steven Griggs, that is a horrible thing to say."

"Okay, sorry. So… natural disaster?"

"…sort of."

Griggs buried his face in his hands, rubbing eyes as he did so. "How can it be 'sort of' a natural disaster?"

"Well it-" he could hear the indignant sigh from where he was upstairs, which was quite an accomplishment on her part. "Look, I'm not going to relay the whole thing to you from downstairs. Just come down and get some breakfast."

"'Just come down and get some breakfast'," he muttered, doing a whiny impression of his mother while flapping his hand around like a duck's beak.

"Less cheek, young man."

She was uncanny sometimes. Whenever he was asking her to fetch something from the kitchen it was like she was in a soundproof booth. But if you were saying something negative about her or cussing or anything she didn't approve of… damn, she was like Superman.

After tossing his wallet back on the bed (and grumbling when it cleared the bed and fell down the other side), Griggs wandered to the bathroom, somewhat reluctant to look in the mirror. Nature was calling pretty insistently, so he took care of that first before inspecting his usually okay visage in the mirror.

He nodded in approval, running his hand over his chin like Indiana Jones contemplating the Golden Idol. After clapping his hands on his cheeks to wake himself up a bit, he headed for the stairs, thundering down them at a fair pace.

"Quieter, please! It's like living-"

"-with an elephant," he finished, speaking with her for the final part of her well rehearsed little speech.

"The fact that you can finish my sentence says something about how many times I've had to tell you, doesn't it?"

Griggs didn't want to bother answering, so he kicked his shoes off beside the front door and wandered into the kitchen. Stepping on a wet patch with only socks on, he let out a groan.

"What did you spill?"

"Nothing mom, jeez…"

"Was it the milk?"

"I didn't _spill anything_!"

"All right, no need to get snippy."

Biting back the instinctive response boiling in his throat, Griggs yanked a cupboard door open, retrieving the only box of sugary cereal he could ever convince his mom to buy. It took him a few minutes to get a spoon and pour some lovely cold milk all over his cereal (after checking to see if it had expired or not, of course). That done, he wandered in a half-asleep daze to the living room, where his mother sat on the sofa, mug of coffee clutched between her hands.

"Try not to spill any of it," she said, never taking her eyes of the TV.

Griggs eyes flashed over the screen before he concentrated on the bowl in his hand. A news channel. Great.

"You got me up for the news?" he muttered, relaxing back into the armchair that sat at an angle from the sofa.

"It's important news," she insisted. "You remember that nuclear explosion in New Mexico a week ago?"

"No."

She continued without pause as though he had never spoken. "And the day after this bright blue flash knocked out everything for miles around?"

"No."

Again, it was as though he hadn't spoken. "And there were all these rumours of monsters and aliens and things like that?"

"No."

He looked at the widescreen TV. He had done everything short of threatening his mother at gunpoint to buy the damn thing. Then again, he had never liked guns. The whole idea of them scared the life out of him, so holding one… the idea made him shudder sometimes.

On the TV, three stuffy men in suits sat around discussing the stock market and shares in some Aperture Science thing. Thrilling stuff, really. Definitely worth being forced out of bed for.

"Well, there are reports of more storms heading out from New Mexico."

He looked at her in mid-munch. "That's why-"

"Chew your food and swallow first."

With a glare, he did so, thinking in retrospect that he probably didn't chew enough as a large lump of sugary snack forced its' way down his throat.

Able to breathe again, he returned to berating his mother. "That's why you woke me up? Bad weather?"

She gave him the usual withered look, as though she were tired of making this point. To be honest, she probably was. "It's current events, Lou. You've got to pay attention to these things or the whole world will pass you by."

"Mom," he groaned, rolling his eyes. "I'm twenty one. The way I figure it, I've got plenty of time to think about current events when I'm older."

"You never know when things can end, Lou."

"Wow, mom, what a cheery thought."

"You know what I mean."

They sat in silence while one of the three men on the TV - a man with almost no hair and thick rimmed glasses - spoke of political ramifications for America, and what the President should be thinking about right now.

"So," Mom said, looking over at him with her customary 'let's be friends' smile. "How was your night out?"

"It was okay," Griggs mumbled, stirring his cereal and watching the soggy shapes swirl around. It beat talking about his sad-sack of a love life with his mom. His _mom. _This couldn't get more embarrassing.

"How did things go with Miranda?"

It was amazing how she could sound concerned and cocky at the same time.

"Could we not talk about it?"

"Oh, I'm sorry honey. She probably wasn't right for you anyway."

He groaned. "Just so you know, that never helps."

Smiling, his mother went to speak again when the TV interrupted her. A male reporter who Griggs vaguely recognised was speaking from… well, he couldn't tell where hell he was. There was just grey, swirling clouds behind him. And not the harmless 'light showers' kind of clouds, either. These were angry, pissed off clouds that looked like they could explode.

"_This is Ryan Sellers, report-" _The sound and picture froze, only occasionally moving forward with screeches and stutters accentuating every movement. Digital static. Lovely stuff.

Finally, Mr Sellers returned.

"_-have gotten worse, and have grown bigger. The wind alone made it almost impossible for us to erect the mobile satellite to send this report. I-"_

Someone from behind the camera seemed to point something out to him, and he turned his head. His head whipped back to the camera, looking horrified as he lurched towards it.

"_The-"_

A wall of bright blue suddenly appeared onscreen, forcing its' way towards the camera until, finally, the picture vanished.

The news anchor's slightly panicked voice came over the blocks of digital mess.

"_Ryan? Ryan? Ryan, are you there?" _He paused for a moment, and the picture returned to the anchorman, who seemed paler than before, even under his orange makeup. _"Well, we seem to have… lost the picture for the moment. We'll do our best to get Ryan back as soon as possible. For now, let's-"_

Griggs had tuned him out, looking to his mother, his cereal forgotten. "Mom, was that the same thing as before?"

She nodded blankly, concerned gaze on the television.

He frowned, forcing himself to watch the screen. How the hell had he managed to ignore something like that? Wasn't this panicking the whole country by now? Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the countries in the world were crapping their collective pants right about now.

Turning back to his mother, he opened his mouth to speak again when the anchorman suddenly returned.

"_It appears we have the signal back. Ryan, are you there?"_

The picture changed to some rocky landscape, a tall forest in the distance. The camera was on it's side, and nothing was moving. Aside from the wind, there wasn't much of anything to be heard.

"_Ryan, can you hear me?"_

For an eternity, there was nothing. The silence hung in the air as neither Griggs, his mother or the anchorman dared say anything.

A hand suddenly crashed down on the dusty ground in the distance, just to the left-hand side of the camera. Slowly, and with an agonising moan to boot, someone slowly dragged themselves forward. It wasn't Ryan Sellers. Judging from the cap turned backwards on his head, he was a member of the camera crew. Perhaps the cameraman himself. Whoever he was, he certainly had a destination in mind as he crawled across in full view of the camera.

As his legs reached the halfway point, a puff of dust came up from the ground beneath his limp feet. He didn't seem to notice, but Griggs certainly did. The cameraman moved a little more, and another puff of dust accompanied him. After the third, the ground behind him practically exploded, and the vague shape of something twice the size of a dog and four times as pointy emerged. There was the occasional glimpse of a yellow, pointy limb and a green wing before whatever it was latched onto the cameraman by the ankles.

With a blood-curdling scream that made Griggs' eyes well up, he was dragged back into the ground, scratching and clawing as he went.

The news channel let the picture linger for a few moments longer before returning to the studio. The anchorman, having gone from airbrushed brown to sickly white in the space of a few minutes, was at a loss for words. He patted a stack of papers in front of him, straightening them up in a move clearly more out of habit than a deliberate act.

"_We'll… come back after this."_

It suddenly cut to a soda commercial, the happy smiling people chugging away seeming almost insulting to what the people all around the country had just seen.

His mouth dry, Griggs licked his lips and swallowed hard. Afraid to look, his gaze gradually travelled across the room to where his mother was sitting. Her eyes too, were afraid to leave the television, her hand over her mouth in constant shock.

"…mom?"

His voice was incredibly weak. He cleared his throat.

"Mom? Are you okay?"

She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. "Oh my God…"

It wasn't something he usually did, but he knew it was right at this moment. He set down the bowl of cereal and sat down next to his mother, wrapping his arm around her.

"I know."

"But…" She took a loud sniff. "The storm is spreading, Lou. That's what they said. They said it was spreading out in all directions."

_Spreading?_

He looked to the TV, where an irritated owner tried to get her cat to eat its' food.

So those things could be coming to his house. They could be coming to Miranda's house. To the mall. To Benny's Sandwich Bar. All these little normal things…

Suddenly, the world was all that smaller to Louis Steven Griggs.

--

(A/N:

Super Chocolate Bear:

I'd always like Griggs and Sheckley, so when the time came to write some stories about them, I jumped at the chance (Sheckley's is coming up later). There was a temptation on my part to make them old friends from the beginning, but I always enjoyed the idea of them meeting on the battlefield and bickering straight away, so separate stories it was. And after all the epic-ness of Barney and Rosenberg and portal storms, I thought it'd be a good idea to concentrate on something a little more domestic and show how Black Mesa affected the world at large. Because, y'know, a nuke going off in the desert followed by storms with aliens in them wouldn't exactly be _ignored_, would it?


	3. Week 4

Disclaimer: We don't own _Half-Life._

_**Sidelines**_

_**Week Four by Super Chocolate Bear**_

His boots crunched against the twigs, branches and plants beneath his feet, a layer of fallen plant life that had been building for countless years. William Sheckley remembered wondering as a kid what you would find if you kept on digging down. Of course, he also remembered his father showing him the correct way to hold a rifle and the best spot to aim for on a deer for the quickest kill (even though he never called it that).

A brisk early morning breeze brushed over his face, and he hunched his shoulders a little. Birds chirped all around him, unseen in the echoing forest that stretched out infinitely in each direction. Not that Sheckley wouldn't be able to find his way back to his tent; years of expert tutelage from his father had seen to an excellent sense of direction and the ability to tell which way was north with nary a thought.

He figured that was why all this 'end of the world' crap wasn't going to affect him all that much. He had clothes, several rifles with plenty of bullets, food everywhere and a nearby stream for cleaning and washing. Not to mention the sun that managed to get pretty damned hot at midday.

Sheckley rubbed his fingers underneath the shoulder strap of his rifle, easing the delicate aching that was starting to come through.

Not that he bought all this 'end of the world' stuff anyway. Sounded like a bunch of nonsense to him. Sure, the reception on his portable TV had cut out, but that happened too many times for him to count since he had moved out here. Didn't mean anything. Nor did the fact that he couldn't get a signal on the radio either. He was just in a bad area. Once he decided to move on, he'd find that it was all some hoax by overeager, show-off college kids or something.

Damned college kids and their pranks.

But strange creatures falling from the sky and digging themselves up from the ground? Storms of bright blue energy that knocked out buildings and electricity? Please.

Didn't matter anyway. Sheckley was far away from it all, and it would be a long time before he would find a reason to go back to civilisation. This life was better than what was waiting for him back at Fossil, anyway. Dead end job at the lumber mill seemed pretty damned pointless to him. As old as he was getting (which wasn't much), he decided that he needed to see the world and _live_ life instead of resting on the old Sheckley tradition.

"_Someday, boy, you__'__ll be doing the same job as me. Just like my father.__"_

Like hell. Once Dad had passed on, Sheckley hadn't seen much point in staying. He had only gone along with what he was saying out of an urge to make sure his increasingly ill father was happy. He was way better off now.

Something bit him on the neck, and he slapped it irritably. Bringing his hand around, he found it smeared in the brown blood and the corpse of some unknown little bugger.

Yep. Definitely better off here.

A distinctive smear of blood on some leaves ahead of him brought his attention down. Assuming the worst and clutching the strap on his shoulder, Sheckley knelt to inspect the stain. It didn't look too bad; more a drop than anything else. It wasn't necessarily a predator; the animal could just have easily accidentally cut itself on something.

Sheckley pulled the rifle down and checked the bullet was in the chamber. You could never be too careful when it came to your dinner. His stomach growled it's agreement, having been starved for more than a day with nothing but a Hershey bar to go on. Speaking of which…

Thrusting a hand down into his back pocket, Sheckley wrestled with his jeans until he brought up the final morsel of chocolate-y goodness, safely cocooned in the long since opened wrapper. He consumed it like a man starved (which, technically, he almost was) before continuing on, making a concerted effort to be quieter than before.

He walked for about ten minutes, the bloody trail getting thicker and his heart pounding ever louder the more he went on. Some thick bushes eventually blocked his path, the blood leading him underneath. Sheckley eyed the trail suspiciously. He _really _shouldn't be thinking about this. He should just turn around and go back to the tent and try to find something else.

The evil stomach of doom grumbled, almost bowling Sheckley over with it's power.

In he went.

Getting down to the ground and with rifle aimed firmly forward, Sheckley started crawling beneath the bushes.

The leaves made far too much noise as he went underneath, but he didn't hear anything snorting or making any sudden moves. And so, with the assumption that he was safe for now, Sheckley crawled on.

His assumption was wrong.

The first clue was the boot he found at the exit of the bushes. The second was the severed foot _inside _said boot. Following the trail of blood, he found it didn't belong to any animal. A man, looking all too similar to Sheckley's father for his tastes, lay crumpled in the middle of the clearing. He was pretty clearly dead, the sheer volume of blood pooled around him leaving little room for doubt.

And the cause was fairly obvious, too.

Some hideous green and yellow monstrosity crouched over the body, playing with it like a cat with a mouse. With long, yellow pointed arms it nudged the limp corpse one way and the other, looking somewhat disappointed that it didn't want to play anymore.

All Sheckley had wanted was a deer. Now he knew where they had all been disappearing to over the past week.

His breathing was incredibly shallow, and he used all his willpower to keep it as inaudible as possible. So. Maybe that 'end of the world' news wasn't as much crap as Sheckley thought. The thing in front of him looked real enough.

Slowly - oh so _very _slowly - Sheckley started to edge his way back, the temptation to shoot the damn thing dissipating quickly. He had no idea if a bullet would be able to penetrate the hide of the… _thing, _let along kill it. Better to simply leave it alone and get the hell back to civilisation, which had somehow gained back some of it's appeal.

A twig snapped beneath his shuffling knees.

The clicking purr coming from the creature ahead stopped instantly. He could hear the pointed legs thudding along the thick ground. Alien breath brushed past his nose, and he tried not to make a sound, even though the scream burned in his throat.

The thing hissed, and a yellow limb stabbed down directly in front of Sheckley's face, skimming his left cheek and embedding itself in the ground.

_That _earned a scream.

He shot up, uncaring of the way the leaves, twigs and branches scratched and cut his face. Stumbling as he turned, Sheckley turned the fall into an awkward roll before setting off in a full-on sprint through the trees. Heavy walking boots kicked up dead leaves and earth as he went, feet pounding along with his heart as he weaved between the trees.

Finally, feeling as though he were a good, healthy distance away, Sheckley skid to a halt and slammed his back to a particularly thick tree. He squeezed the rifle so tight he thought it may pop in his hands. Breathing heavy and laboured, Sheckley slowly moved his head around the corner, glancing around the suddenly ever so silent forest.

Nothing. His scream alone probably scared the thing away. Letting himself calm down, Sheckley closed his eyes and rested his head back against the thick tree.

Something clicked above him. Opening his eyes, he saw the creature nestled in some branches above his head, twisting it's mouth (which seemed to be separate from the body) this way and that in a curious manner. Sheckley instinctively brought the rifle up. The alien obviously had no idea what it was since it made no move.

Sheckley pulled the trigger.

The shut rang out through the forest and Sheckley's ears, and he watched as one of the pointed wings of the creature exploded in a shower of yellow-green blood. Except, much to Sheckley's discomfort, the bullet didn't kill the creature. Instead, it simply twitched the wing in question before dropping from the tree and coming down on him.

He didn't even have a chance to move as it landed on him, pinning him to the ground. Spiked yellow claws stabbed down on his head, and Sheckley frantically moved his head to avoid being skewered. With a sudden swing that surprised Sheckley with it's speed and ferocity, he swung the rifle across the creature's side, knocking it from him like a baseball. He lost his grip on the rifle in the swing, leaving him to merely watch as it flew over the monster's head and thudded to the ground behind it.

"Oh, _shit_!"

The exclamation did nothing to deter the alien, which came for him again. Sheckley scrambled to his feet and started running. Dodging through knee height bushes and ducking underneath branches, Sheckley barely had a chance to check behind him for his hunter, his only indication of continued pursuit the occasional buzzing and clicking noise.

The sound of running water came to his ears, and Sheckley bust through some thick bushes, only to fall immediately down into a sudden creek. He rolled against the rocks and mud, coming to a final, splashy stop, facedown, in the stream below. Groaning, he pushed himself up from the cold bath he had given himself. Another click made him look around, and he saw the creature standing next to him, blood dripping and breathing looking slightly laboured. Whether the damn things could even breathe or not, Sheckley didn't know, but still… it _looked _like it was tired.

It brought up it's claw, and Sheckley reached for the machete in his boot. He had no chance to stopping the creature from killing him, he knew that. But at least he could take the son of a bitch with him.

And then it exploded.

And green shit went _everywhere._

Sheckley simply lay in the water for a while, staring blankly ahead at the spot his killer had once occupied. The yellow-green blood was drifting away in the water beneath him. Looking down to his clothes, he found himself caked in the stuff. Then he noticed that he had the urge to cough. Letting it happen, he found with a certain amount of revulsion that he was spitting up green. Just… green.

At least it was only blood. He wasn't sure how he would handle alien organs being in his mouth at this point.

A shadow cast itself over him, and Sheckley looked around to who he presumed was his saviour. Finding a hunched over, scaly brown thing with a huge red eye, he scrambled back in the water, backing his way up to the shore of the stream with his machete out in front of him warningly.

"Back up! Back the hell up!"

It was then that Sheckley noticed that there was not only one, but four of the creatures. The one in the middle, seemingly their leader, looking to the others curiously. A low growl of a voice emerged, and, in a display that Sheckley wouldn't forget for the rest of his life, began talking to each other.

At the same damn time.

They weren't speaking English, but then, Sheckley wasn't expecting them to. They _were _aliens, after all.

Finally, the lead thing turned to look at him.

"The human… must not fear," it managed, voice guttural and strained, as though struggling with the concept of speaking.

Sheckley just stared at them for a few moments, letting the sounds of the forest surround them all.

"Uh… what?"

"Fear. It is unnecessary. These ones shall not harm you. Vortikind are the least of mankind's concerns."

The others nodded in agreement. Off to the right of the central alien, one pulled up something about the size of a football that had been, thus far, dangling limply from his spindly arm.

"And we have sustenance!"

This brought about a group enthusiasm, all of the aliens nodding excitedly and chorusing 'Sustenance'.

"The human will join us in the feast!"

Squinting, Sheckley tried to make out whatever the hell it was that the thing was carrying. On closer inspection, it looked like nothing Sheckley had ever seen, either in person or on documentaries. Another alien. Aliens hunting aliens. Made sense. Still, he decided he wasn't too hungry for _that _kind of food.

He put up a polite hand. "Uh… no thanks."

They all glanced to each other. "Is it not… satisfactory?" the leader asked, almost sounding hurt.

"Oh, no, um… I just, uh… I'm not hungry."

Like a sarcastic best friend, Sheckley's stomach took that moment to growl so loud that he was sure it echoed all the way to Fossil and back.

Once more, the aliens looked to each other before the leader spoke again, sounding slightly amused. "It is likely the human is attempting to be…" it struggled for a moment, then finally found the word it wanted. "…polite. It is unnecessary. We appreciate that the human taste buds have difficulty with the delicate flavour of headcrab."

"Headcrab?" Sheckley blinked and shook his head. "Wait, you know about politeness? And manners?"

"Indeed," the headcrab holding alien chimed in, nodding, "the Eli Vance has taught us much of these things. Certain actions are acceptable, and others are not. It is rather strange, but we have decided to adapt to the human culture. We are, after all, guests."

Struggling to take in about a hundred different concepts at once, Sheckley pulled himself to his feet and slipped the machete away. "Eli V- human… guests?"

The alien paused. "Indeed." It took a few steps towards him, and Sheckley pressed himself to the rock face behind him.

"Do you have mental deficiencies?"

"What?"

"Ah. This one apologises." The thing took a breath. "DO YOU HAVE MENTAL DEFIENCIES? THE ELI VANCE HAS TOLD US OF HUMANS THAT HAVE DIFFICULTY GRASPING SIMPLE CONCEPTS-"

Sheckley threw his hands in the air to stop the booming noise. Damn, it echoed all around the forest like a foghorn. "Stop, stop! I understand! Christ, my ears…"

"Once more, this one apologises." The alien bowed it's head graciously. "You merely seemed… unresponsive."

"Well… this is a lot to take in," he muttered defensively, rubbing his temple.

"Understandable. We had a similar experience adapting to your… unusual forms."

"Unusual?"

"Indeed. You have no third arm, and only two almost symmetrical eyes, qualities most unattractive to Vortikind. And the reproductive cycle…" it shuddered. "Most troubling."

The others nodded their emphatic agreement, muttering 'troubling' in chorus.

"Uh… yeah."

"So. Now that we have exchanged 'the pleasantries'," the alien clasped it's hands together in a disarmingly human gesture, almost pleading. "Does the human wish to join us in our feast?"

A cheer of 'feast, feast!' went up from behind him.

Sheckley's throat suddenly felt rather dry. "Um… I guess."

"Feast!" they roared, and went scampering off away from the stream, climbing up into the forest and gesturing for him to follow.

"But I reserve the right not to eat any alien… things!" he yelled after them, scrambling to keep up with their surprisingly brisk pace.

He watched and walked with the aliens (which he soon found out were called Vortigaunts) as they hunted the headcrabs and killed Antlions (the thing that had been hunting him earlier) with ease. And there were varieties of headcrabs, as well. Well, two, but still, that was two more than Sheckley knew existed this morning.

Later, with the night sky above them and a glorious full moon lighting the way, the Vortigaunts watched with fascination as Sheckley started a fire at his campsite. While one rotated seven or so headcrabs on a spit above the fire, the others became instantly enamoured with his tent. Not just the tent, but the concept of camping in general.

"Does such thin shelter provide protection from marauding consciousnesses?"

"Is the blue of any significance?"

"Does not eating in such a place introduce hygiene issues?"

That last one seemed rich coming from a scaly alien that seemed to have slick sheen to it, but Sheckley let it pass by.

And as it turned out, Sheckley took his reserved right to abstain from headcrabs. But that didn't stop him from wanting some himself.

Not only that, but thanks to his collection of supplies, he now knew that headcrab went very well with ketchup.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(A/N:

Super Chocolate Bear:

This was a story concept from BlindAcquiescence, including Sheckley's back-story. I wasn't originally going to give this story such a humorous bent, but as soon as the Vortigaunts arrived, it just happened. Their difficulty with human concepts just tickles me, especially when we're considering that this is early days for them. Another thing: Griggs and Sheckley's respective first names are the same as Abbot and Costello, who I believe were an influence on the Valve developers when they were creating the characters for _Episode Two_. Just a bit of ­_Half-Life _trivia for ya.

Blindacquiescence:

I have to say I don't think I could possibly have written the Vortikind as well as my compatriot has. They are strange, yet disarming, and have a charm about them that makes them utterly lovable. I wanted to use this not just as a story about what happened to Griggs, but as an microcosm of what was going on all around the world. People meeting up with Vortigaunts and wondering just what the _hell_ they were!


End file.
